MARITIME TOWNS.

Ravenspur. -- Our English histories record that, more than fivehundred and ninety four years ago,the future Henry IV. of England landed at Ravenspur, in Yorkshire. We look in vain for such a place on any modern map, but we learn from historians and geologists that the sea had washed away a large portion of the coast in that neighbourhood, amounting, as some suppose, to several miles, since the time of the Roman occupation.

The promontory of Spurn Head still remains, indicating the locality, and the nearest village to it is that of Kilnsea, which is even now gradually disappearing. Its old churchyard has been nearly removed, and its parish church of St Helen, which was deserted in the early 1800's, had fallen into ruins.

 

Formby-- Lancashire.

It is said that, in 1745, some of the military that occupied South Lancashire during the invasion of the Pretender, were quartered in the ancient village of Formby. This place is distant about nine miles from Liverpool, on the north shore.

In 1787 only one cottage remained on the borders of that ancient graveyard, and it has been recorded that the old man who occupied it said that his father's house originally stood almost in the centre of the town. The desertion of the place had, therefore, occured during the life of one man. He stated that in his boyhood he had often jumped down from the pier to the decks of vessels that lay below, receiving or discharging their cargoes. The position of the village, with its church and churchyard in the 1860's, were situated nearly a mile and a half inland; that mountians of drift sand, held together by star-grass planted upon them, cover the site of the village, enclosing the ancient graveyard like a lake embossomed among hills.

It was several feet below the ordinary surface of the ground, and was only kept clear by great exertions. Though numerous trunks of large trees were found under the high-water mark, as on the Cheshire coast, scarcely a shrub flourished in the vacinity of the sand; and, as memorials of the former town, the sandy lanes, in which it was extemely difficult to walk, were called by the names of streets, as Church street and Duke street. Vessels of every kind shunned the coast, both on account of the dangers and its desolation. The township of Ravens Meols is mentioned in the Domesday Survey, a large portion of it had thus been obliterated. Domesday said of it: -

The name of it is still preserved and a little church was erected for the benefit of the farmers and cottagers near the shore, about 1858. With the urban spread of Liverpool it could become part of that city as many villages have joined in the expansion of others.We now take on the famously recognised town of Dunwich. The case of this town is so important, and its circumstances resembles so closely with Meols in Cheshire, that I thought it desirable to treat the subject in some detail. It is therefore, separately referred to in the following chapter.

 

DUNWICH.

Its History.

This town is situated in the county of Suffolk, on the margin of the North Sea. It is supposed to have been an ancient British settlement, and in all probability it was actually so; whilst the objects of Roman manufacture and use found there, leave no doubt as to its occupation by that people also. During the time of the Heptarchy it was the capital of the kingdom of East Anglia, and became the seat of a bishop in A.D 636. It remained as such for more than 450 years, when the see was finally transferred to Norwich. After about half a century the see was divided into Elmham and Dunwich, which were reunited about the middle of the tenth century; and in the year 1094 the united diocese took the name of Norwich. Bishop Alfhun - 697 A.D.- and others were buried here. I believe that a list of bishops given in the appendix to the Chronicle of Florence of Worcester, from which it appears that there were three bishops of East Anglia, eleven of Dunwich only, and eighteen of Elham and Dunwich united.

The chronocler seemed not to be aware of the reason for the removal of the see. During the incusions of the Danes it bore a part in the sufferings of the eastern coast, having been devastated by them; but after the Conquest, in the time of the Domesday Survey, it contained 236 burgesses, 100 poor, and had a herring fishery yeilding annully more than 60,000 fish. In the time of Richard I., (1189 -1199) a fine levied on it for selling corn to the kings enemy was more than five times as great as the fines levied on Ipswich and Yarmouth respectively, which had committed the same offence. In the time of Edward I., when it was erected into a parliamentary borough, it was a flourishing seaport, and furnished eleven ships of war.

It is recorded that at one time there was upwards of fifty religious foundations in the city, including churches, chapels, priories and hospitals. Of its original numerous parish churches not one now remains. At one time, foundations of several of the churches were visible, including those of St Micheal, St Mary, St Martin, St John, St Peter, and St Nicholas.

The church of All Saints remained the longest, but was roofless in the middle of the 19th century and Ibelieve that the sea has now made its claim upon it. It was rebuilt some distance inland in 1826. Its existence as a parliamentary borough, which had been maintained from the time of Edward I., was terminated by the Reform bill; and its mayor and corporation, whose special privileges date back to the time of King John, have also passed away. Of its moat and its square earthen fortifications, no trace can now be seen; and the metropolis of an ancient kingdom is now a village with few inhabitants, in 1801 its population was 184 and in 1851, 294. The ancient Episcopal seat does not now possess even the dignity of a parish, as it was a mere chapelry. Its area consisted of 1130 acres of land, and 335 of water.

 

POINTS OF CORRESPONDENCE WITH MEOLS.

(1) The town was built on a hill of sand and loam, not unlike the sand and turf-bog on the Cheshire coast; so that the tide gradually washed it away, Sometimes it presented to the sea asteep grassy bank, but, after an unusually hightide and storm, nothing remained but a perpendicular earthen cliff.

(2) The sea and land seemed to give and take as on the coast of Cheshire, for a while one part is carried away, sand is silted up in another place; so that over what was once the haven of Dunwich there was pasture ground for cattle. Minsmere level in the neighbourhood was the first marsh, and is now meadowland.

(3) Objects were found after a particular conjuction of winds and tides, the water having washed away the soluble earth, and having left metallic objects remaining.

(4) They were, in general, picked up by fishermen and others idling on the shore; and vast numbers, as at Meols, have no doubt been lost from want of appreciation of their value, or of care in their preservation.

The objects discovered were resembling those recovered on the seashore of Cheshire - Roman, Saxon, and Mediaeval, constituted a great variety and interest. The enormous amount of objects are too numerous to evaluate here, but suffice it to say that had metal detectors been in use in the 19th century who knows what could have been saved from total destruction.